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"Determining and applying the criteria for when and when not to use correction is the essence of the art of dog training. I make a distinction between a mistake and a lack of effort." - Mike Lardy - Volume I "After Collar Conditioning"

Huge thanks to Nancy and Bart Pals for the hard work they obviously went through to make their farm ready for the event. An additional huge thanks for all the hard work they went through at their own home to host a group of retriever folks, most of whom they'd never met before.

The original concept was Stan's and he pulled together many of the details. Thanks Stan! Janie Hoctel worked the line all day giving great coaching and suggestions to handlers of all levels - Brand new, never been to an event before, to folks running MH and QAA dogs. One takeaway for me that I keep on realizing again and again, "keep an open mind". If you close your mind and don't pay attention to other folks, who have success in the game with their own dogs, you may miss something. At this point in my dog game life, I really like discussing ideas to see how I'd approach it, and how others may do it. Frankly I wish that Janie, and her poor husband Duane, who never got any RTF/Avery raffle tickets, lived closer. I'd like to train with them more!

I met so many great new people, and rather than list names, I'll just keep it general. Everyone was really great.

Thanks to all of the RTF sponsors for keeping RTF running. Without this thread, many of the folks who met this weekend, would not have done so. I think we picked up some new folks in our sport, and I know of at least one situation where a couple new training partners were formed. Turns out they live only 20 minutes apart!

Special thanks to David Carrington and Avery. We had a cool raffle at the end of the day and everyone left with some cool merchandise. Caps, bumpers, streamers, Dri-Stor dog food bags,... The best of all was when one of our long distance participants chose to take the AVERY BANNER as his prize when his number was drawn.

Display it with pride, my friend!

For those of you who picked up the new generation of Avery hexabumpers, feel free to share your thoughts. They're more flexible/softer these days. What do you think?

Thanks to all of you...

Nancy's my hero.

Chris

"Determining and applying the criteria for when and when not to use correction is the essence of the art of dog training. I make a distinction between a mistake and a lack of effort." - Mike Lardy - Volume I "After Collar Conditioning"